Discordant Lullaby
by Mad Writer in Manila
Summary: Everybody thought they had the downfall of the Fire Nation Royal Family figured out, but they couldn't be farther from the truth. They thought they knew, but only Azula knew. Warnings: violence, character death and unresolved Oedipus and Electra complexes. Not AU if you disregard The Legend of Korra.


**Author's Notes: This is my first fanfiction and I would really appreciate constructive criticism. I apologize if some characters seem out-of-character, but this story follows Azula's perspective and her point-of-view will probably distort reality to such an extent. I encourage you to read past her insanity and try to come up with your own theories of what was truly happening and it would be wonderful if you can share them.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar: The Last Airbender**

* * *

Zuko always got what he wanted. He deserved it, after all he had been through, they say. Everybody thought of him as the rightful heir to the Fire Nation throne, wrongly-treated by his tyrannical father. He was good, having inherited his mother's kindness, and he was what the Fire Nation needed.

Everybody loved him, but Azula saw through his deceptions. They all thought she was the monster, but the monster was plain for all to see as he sat on the throne that he had taken through violence. Beneath the all too thin veneer of kindness and honour, she knew lay the mind of a calculating manipulator, ruthless and with unwavering determination. Half a face and three years of exile were but mere trifles in exchange for everything that now lay within his grasping hands. He had everything now: The love and admiration of the Fire Nation, power, wealth, the Avatar in his thrall, and even her dignity. He had it all, but he was not contented.

* * *

He should have had everything his heart desired when their mother, Princess Ursa, had been found wandering the Earth Kingdom, but she was not the same woman Zuko had loved. She was no longer the beautiful princess who bore an air of dignity as she went about her duties in the Palace. She was a dirty, malnourished peasant, half-crazed and bearing only vague memories of the past six years, remembering only the time before her banishment.

She had barely paid Zuko any mind, and Azula was sure she saw the disappointment in his eyes. Seeing her husband as a ghost of his former princely self, Ursa tended to Ozai for most of her days. She still loved him, and, in her madness, she believed the son she had once loved so dearly had become a monster who had usurped his stern but loving father. Everybody thought that Princess Ursa had truly gone insane, but only Azula knew that she had seen the truth. Ursa spent all her energy caring for her husband and daughter. She loved and protected them, while loudly declaring her disappointment for her son who she could not believe had fallen so low. After a long time of feeling inadequate, Azula felt the love she had yearned for in her childhood. She had her mother and her father and even Uncle Iroh. All that was missing was the big brother who she had wanted to love her, but the fact that her parents finally saw Zuko for the monster he was inside was more than compensation enough. She would smile to herself, her family all around her, while her brother could only watch from behind the bars with a devouring look of jealousy in his eyes. Despite living in a cell with no windows for which to see the sun and having doctors come in everyday to tell her she was insane, Azula was happier than she had ever been.

* * *

However, her happiness was not meant to last. Due to years in exile, Ursa had contracted a condition that the doctors could not cure. Her health deteriorated and her heart grew weak. After a bout of mania brought on by the announcement of her son's engagement, her heart gave out under the strain and stopped beating. That very night, Ozai took his own life, unable to bear the burden of living without her and with the knowledge that he had partially caused her sickness. Azula understood how much they loved each other, but she resented how they had left her. She was alone now, Uncle Iroh dead from a stroke months ago. This was his entire fault. Somehow, she knew that he had done something to take them away from her just to spite her for having something he did not. She was all alone with the scarred monster and the tiny world she had built up around her had shattered like glass all in the course of one night.

* * *

The night after her parents' cremation, Zuko had come to her windowless cell. For once, he was very gentle, just like she imagined her brother should be in her childhood wishes. There was no hostility, no distance, like in their younger years, only a shared need to cling to the only family they had left. He took her back to the Palace, out of kindness and pity, everybody said. She was constantly underneath his supervision and care. Wherever he went, she was always close by, like a child yet to be trusted to be alone without hurting herself. The days blurred together in Azula's shattered world, not really knowing what was happening, but understanding enough to see that her brother cared enough to pay attention to her and to see to her needs. Slowly, she began to let her guard down, to believe that he did love her like she wished he would so long ago and that he did see his little sister, not a monster, when he looked upon her.

Little by little, the scattered shards of her consciousness began to fall into place and she once more began to see beneath the façade he had put up. Suddenly, his little gestures of kindness all began to reveal their true faces, but she had yet to decipher all their hidden meanings. Everybody kept saying she was sick, but only she knew that he was the one who was sick.

He had come to her one night, tired from his responsibilities, and, like the good sister she was supposed to be, she had helped him into bed. He had then uttered a phrase that she had yet learned to fear: "You look just like our mother." And he was the very image of their father. If Zuko could not have his mother, he would have the next best thing.

* * *

More than a year had passed since that night that she had learned to fear those words. She sat in her room, the moonlight dancing lightly on the floor. Her brother rarely visited her anymore; he still did sometimes, but he was often preoccupied with other things. Most nights, she passed in her room by the window.

Still, she was never alone anymore. She looked down at the infant sleeping in her arms. He was a quiet child, rarely ever crying at all. She had given him the perfect name: Atzi, a name from the Ancient Sun Warriors meaning "little father". He did look a lot like his father and a lot like her, too. His dark locks, pale skin and fiery gold eyes were all trademarks of the royal line. Everybody thought he was the product of Azula's indiscretion, but only she knew that he was Zuko's own issue, a child born purely of the royal blood.

Lightly, she stroked her son's hair as she sang a solemn lullaby filled with blood and fire. She loved her son, but she could not forget that she had conceived him when the scarred monster had taken advantage of her moment of weakness. He had ruined her, her body and her image, while he remained pure in the eyes of others. One day, the son he had produced would be his downfall. Azula would teach him to hate his father, the monster who had usurped the throne that was rightfully hers. He would grow strong enough to deliver them both from his horrific grasp. He would right everything that had been made wrong, defiled by Fire Lord Zuko. He would restore the Fire Nation to its former glory. Her son would be the fire that will consume the Fire Nation's imperfections to rebuild it, proud and mighty, from the ashes.

* * *

Zuko had chosen to busy himself with a mere Water Tribe girl. Katara might have been the Water Chief's daughter, but she was barely a royal. Still, Zuko was utterly smitten by her charms, as rough and uncultured as she was. Azula could barely stand the sight of her every time they met in the Palace. She would look impassively at the Water peasant, maintaining civility for formality's sake, but hatred and disgust burned just beneath the surface. As simple as she was, Katara was no fool and went out of her way just to avoid her sister-in-law like a scared child. Azula could only sneer; it was expected of a Water peasant to be weak of will. Still, everybody loved Zuko's little Water Tribe girl, crying out their joy about the unification of their nations, but only Azula knew how bringing her into the Royal Family would forever taint their bloodline. She was a spot of dirt in their immaculate family tree. Atzi would learn to hate her, too, she made certain. She needed to be eradicated, just like everything else that was wrong.

* * *

Azula trained Atzi herself. He had raw talent just like she had and an eagerness to please that had reminded her of how Zuko used to be. He was a fast learner, just like his mother, a true firebending prodigy of the Royal bloodline. Firebending was as natural to him as breath, but potential had to be refined for perfection to be attained. She trained him on the same regimen her father had used when she was young. She placed great weight on the balance of precision and power and the importance of a good strategy. Endless hours were spent on the mastery of the art until she was satisfied with his work. He never complained, never ceased to smile as his mother told him to repeat a form for the tenth time in a row. Hard work paid off when, at the tender age of nine, he had learned to harness the power of lightning. Azula surveyed her handiwork with pride. Everybody else would have said that he had mastered the art of firebending, but only Azula knew that skill was nothing without a driving power. Over and over, she taught him that fire was meant to consume, to devour and to cleanse. His purpose was to cleanse the Fire Nation of its impurities; he was the devouring fire.

* * *

Despite his firebending skill, Atzi was a lonely child. He was a quiet boy, preferring to read or train more than play with the children of the sycophants that peopled Zuko's court. He was sweet and respectful, reminding her all too much of Zuko. Sometimes, she wondered if she had molded him into the very image of his father. At times, he seemed to manipulate others, using the same method his father used, making himself seem a victim at the expense of another and garnering the sympathies of others. There were times she wondered if he was manipulating her with his obedient nods and soft smiles. One look at his dedication to his training and consuming hatred for his father banished all her fears.

* * *

While Azula hated Katara, she wanted the false Fire Lady's little daughter, Tenanna, to remain unharmed once her plans came into fruition. She could see her younger self in the waterbender's determined blue eyes as she twirled and leapt, water coiling and lashing out about her like deadly tentacles. She would often watch the girl train well into the night when her bending was strongest with only the moon to guide her. She was a perfectionist, striving to please her father, but Zuko never thought she was good enough. "Bending skill is not everything," he would say. "I will love you regardless." He was a liar. Their own father would have showered such a child with praise and told her how to improve. He thought lowly of her bending and withheld from her the information to make her stronger. Azula would spare the girl and give her the attention she needed. Tenanna deserved so much better, just as she had.

* * *

Azula grew horrified of the day when Atzi would face his father. She was afraid that he might die and leave her all alone once more. Everything would shatter once again.

She tried to protect him, but she could not stop him from fulfilling his destiny. He was born and raised to kill his father and the false Fire Lady, take the throne that was rightfully his, restore the Fire Nation to its former glory, and bring peace to his troubled mother. He was the devouring fire born to right the wrongs of the world.

She had created a monster, unflinching in his desire to correct the faults of the Fire Nation. He did not think of himself anymore, only of his mission. The revenge uttered in his ears from his birth left its mark upon his mind. Azula was certain that she had driven him insane. He felt very little, not even the pain he inflicted upon himself. Nothing, not even fear, could drive him from his singular mission. They wrote in books that children born of incestuous unions were prone mental problems and, had anybody known, they would have said that that was the root of Atzi's madness, but only Azula would have known that she had sown his insanity with her own hands.

* * *

There was nothing left to do but to hold him in her arms. He had been critically injured; it was a miracle that he had triumphed at all. Using the last remnants of his strength to strike down his father, Atzi collapsed with a smile on his lips as he called to his mother. There was nothing else she could do to save him as she watched the last smoking breaths exit his pale lips. Zuko had managed to redirect his first shot of lightning, but he had continued to attack as his body convulsed and had been able to fire another bolt. The Fire Lord's sizzling corpse lied at the foot of the throne, still throwing off sparks. The charred remains of the false Fire Lady lied by the door, thoroughly burned; nobody would have even known it was Katara if not for the blackened ivory pendant that clung to her throat.

Tenanna, eyes wide with fear, sat huddled in the corner. She was probably scarred for life, having witnessed, all in one day, the death of her parents and the half-brother who she had believed was her cousin. It would be wrong to subject her to more death, but Azula was left with no other choice. She would inherit the burden of the Fire Nation throne, but, hopefully, none of the madness that accompanied it.

"Take care of the Fire Nation," Azula said before she began to swirl sparks around herself, her motions slow and deliberate. She had brought ruin to the Royal Family. She had killed her only son who had known nothing but devotion and loyalty to his mother. There was nothing left to do but to end the madness that ran through their veins. As the bolts grew large, she guided their ends to her chest and shot the lightning through her heart. Death came quick and she joined what remained of her family on the floor.

The Fire Nation believed that the deaths that day were due to a curse of madness from Sozin's blood, but only Azula knew that each of them had been responsible, sowing the seeds of madness in each other. They thought they were born mad, but only Azula knew that they had driven each other mad. They thought they knew, but only Azula knew.

* * *

**More Author's Notes: The ages are vague on purpose. It is up to you to decide how old Zuko and Azula are when this all begins. You can also imagine the OC spawn are children when the murders are committed or they can be adults, whichever horrifies you more. **

**About the OCs' Names:**

**Atzi - It's based on the Hungarian name "Etzel", an alternate way of saying Attila (as in "the Hun"), which means "little father". I just smashed the two variations of the name together. I could have gone with "Atzel" but "Atzi" sounds more like it would fit in the Fire Nation. It seemed like a fitting name for a child of Azula. **

**Tenanna - It's based on the Koyukon phrase "tene no, tenene" literally meaning "trail river". That's also the origin of the name of the Tanana River in Alaska. It's kind of appropriate for a waterbender.**


End file.
